Hollywood snaps up hot ebook titles

Producers mine a new source of branded material

With
the "50 Shades of Grey" series hitting 10 million sales this week,
ebooks are emerging as a sexy new source of material for Hollywood. The
majors are keeping a close eye on digital bestseller lists and showing a
willingness to pay traditional book-rights fees for digital titles --
provided they come with built-in brand awareness.

The hunt to option
such titles is heating up after a handful of high-profile sales of
ebooks, many self-published, including April's $3 million sale of "50
Shades" to Universal. Observers credit "Shades" with paving the way for
subsequent sales of "Wool" and "On the Island," both of which sold for
big bucks despite the fact that both went straight to Kindles and iPads
without going through major publishers.

"As we've known for years
and years, the studios have been much more interested in brands, whether
that's a board game or video game or traditional book," said Steve
Fisher, veep of APA and a literary agent who represents books-to-films
deals. "The last couple of deals have really indicated a huge
willingness on the part of studios and other buyers to be open to ebooks
in a way they hadn't been before."

Fisher most recently repped
the author of "On the Island," a romance eBook which MGM snapped up
(Daily Variety, May 14). Tome by Des Moines, Iowa resident Tracey
Garvis-Graves spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list
before the Lion forked over a low- to mid-six-figure fee.

"The
effect is that they're looking more closely than ever at the ebook list
for the original ebook bestsellers," said Jody Hotchkiss, a literary
agent with Hotchkiss and Associates.

But traditional books have a
key advantage over their digital counterparts: publishers tend to get
into business with known quantities, or properties vouched for by
literary agents. With ebooks, it's the Wild West when it comes to
identifying promising authors and material. Digital books are virtually
free to publish, and there's no gatekeepers vetting their quality.

According
to data from research firm Publishers Marketplace, film and TV
producers bought rights to 209 books last year and 79 so far this year.
Very few of those were ebooks, and nearly all sold before they were
published.

That means ebooks grab the attention of lit agents only
after they start rising on the charts or generate enough word-of-mouth
buzz. Currently high-charting ebooks include "Beauty" by Laurell K.
Hamilton; Neal Stephenson's sword-fighting epic "Mongoliad"; romance
"The Marriage Bargain" by Jennifer Probst; and "Beautiful Disaster" by
Jamie McGuire -- none of which have yet been picked up. Meanwhile,
E.L. James' steamy "50 Shades" continues to top the ebook chart.

The
New York Times began listing bestselling ebooks in early 2011, a few
months before thriller author John Locke reached 1 million in sales for
his ebooks. But just like with traditional book publishing, getting
discovered is a big challenge for the ebooks that aren't perched atop
the bestseller list.

"The tricky thing about ebooks is that there
are a lot of them out there," Fisher said, pointing out that ebooks
don't get promoted the way traditional books can be. Reps often catch
wind of self-published material by looking at the top-sellers lists on
Amazon and iTunes.

"We follow sales by looking online, just as
anybody can," said Jane Dystel, president of literary management agency
Dystel & Goderich. Dystel found "On the Island" author Garvis-Graves
by checking online book sales, later bringing the scribe to Fisher.

"The
availability of ebooks is much greater today than it was even six
months ago ... as the availability of good books increases, of course
Hollywood is also going to be more interested," she said.

But
because many are self-published, ebooks must also contend with the
stigma that they're not the same quality as traditional novels. Most
agents would rather not dig through the virtual slush pile in the hopes
of finding a "50 Shades."

"I'm finding that book scouts in New
York are really integral to this process even more so than they are
(for) traditional books," Fisher said. "It's harder for your average
ebook to separate itself from the pack, but a lot of these authors are
very savvy at promoting themselves."

Case in point: Amanda
Hocking, the 28-year-old self-published writer whose popular paranormal
teen novels landed her a movie contract with Media Rights Capital last
year. After selling more than 100,000 ebooks, Hocking landed a $2
million deal from St. Martin's Press for a four-book series, turning
down a higher bid from a competitor that she felt wouldn't reach as many
readers.

"Studios have signalled that they don't care whether
it's an ebook or a hardbook because, ultimately, they bring the same
kind of brand awareness that they so value," Fisher said.

Studios
are willing to pay for that brand awareness. In a non-competitive
situation, traditional book rights often fetch between $150,000 to
$250,000 -- a range that now applies to popular e-fare.

While
agents like Fisher may not always deal with publishers when it comes to
ebooks, they rely heavily on book scouts -- filters that tend to go in
and out of vogue as studios cut back budgets and depend upon junior
execs to bring in material.

"In-house book scouts stopped being
common when the studios determined that New York publishing was less
important for movies (than) 10 to 15 years ago," Hotchkiss said.

Studios,
for example, often have a book scout in-house or work with an outside
company. Disney, 20th Century Fox and Sony, for example, have a scout on
staff, while Warner Bros. and Universal work with outside companies on
an exclusive basis.

But as hot ebooks continue to go mainstream, Hollywood will surely continue to pay attention.

"Studios
and major buyers out here were taking their book scouts' calls a lot
more quickly and suddenly paying attention to New York in a way that I
hadn't seen in years," Fisher said of the immediate effect of the "50
Shades" sale. "I think that any qualms that buyers had about getting
behind an ebook ... (are) gone."

AUTHOR-PRENEURS!

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